The Present Will Eventually Become History: A Mosaic of Meaning in Istanbul

     As part of my Fund for Teachers Fellowship I have come to Istanbul, Turkey to learn about ancient mosaic making and the art of mosaic. Istanbul is where the east and the west literally meet; where Europe and Asia join borders. Part of Istanbul sits in Europe, part in Asia. It is also a city with a long and complicated, yet culturally colorful history.  While Istanbul is known for many things including Turkish tea, Turkish coffee, baklava, kebobs, kilim rugs, the evil eye, the hand of Fatima, beautiful ceramics, the Bosphorus Strait, and being the home of the Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman empires, it is also the home of what may be the worlds most famous mosaics.  As an educator, it is the perfect place for this professional development journey I am on this summer.

Above: This is our 2014 Sonia King Intensive Mosaic Workshop group at the Caferaga Medresesi,
which is a cultural arts school. Our mosaic workshop is being held in a studio at the school.

Above: Workshop in session in the 16th century studio. 

     We are now three days into the 2014 Istanbul Intensive Mosaic Workshop led by Sonia King.  Mosaicists have come from all over the world and their skill and talent is not only inspiring to me, but truly a completely new art experience for me. These women from Australia, Sweden, Tunisia, Turkey, and the United States are not only completely serious about mosaics, but their hands are some of the most skilled I have ever sat in one room with. I am often used to being one of the most skilled artists in the room and working with most artistic media comes easily for me. Being creative is second nature. Yet in this room of incredible mosaicists I am gaining not only a great understanding of the word "intensive," but I am clearly the "newbie" in the room and have much to learn. I went through a temporary phase of inner frustration the first morning as I felt all thumbs, even  though I had made mosaics before. Any mosaic I have made, however, is not even in the same league with the quality of mosaics being done by workshop attendees who are mosaic professionals and enthusiasts from around the world. Once I settled into a rhythm and relied on my own design skills, plus figured out how to use the grouty, sandy adhesive which is unlike the adhesives I had used for mosaic work, I began to feel that creative energy I am used to resurfacing. Additionally, I reminded myself that I am here to learn. If I were already a skilled mosaicist it wouldn't be necessary for me to travel halfway across the world to sit in this class. Yet just as good teachers are always learning, good mosaicists are always learning too.

Top photo:  Working on my mosaic.
Above: This is my mosaic after a couple of days of work.
It still needs a lot of work, but it's beginning to take shape.  

     The workshop is combining several aspects of mosaic technique and knowledge. We are learning technique from Sonia King, who is a lively, spirited mosaic genius. We are learning from other workshops attendees as we work side by side with each other. Interspersed with our own mosaic work and technique we are meeting before class begins or going at lunch or after class to view the historical mosaics that make Istanbul the perfect home for this workshop:
1)  The Great Palace Mosaic Museum is an incredible home to Roman mosaics, attributed to the possible reign of Justinian I from 527-565 A.D.. The mosaics were uncovered by Turkish archaeologists from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland during extensive excavations at the Arasta Bazaar in Sultan Ahmet Square beginning in 1934.
2)  The Hagia Sophia Museum (originally a church) is home to masterful Byzantine mosaics that have survived changes in religion and earthquakes, being plastered over and then uncovered, and the true test of time.  I first studied these mosaics at Kansas State University in 1980 in an art history course and seeing them in person was monumental to me, especially when you know their artistic and historic story.The art world might consider these the most famous mosaics on the planet earth. The Emperor Alexander, Empress Zoe, Comnenus, Virgin and Child, and Deesis mosaics are goldenly breathtaking. They are in fact, made from gold. Gold leaf in differing shades was placed under tiny glass tiles of differing shades to make the tiny tesserae. The fact that they have survived countless man-made tragedies and natural disasters is a credit to the artisans who made them.
3) The Church of the Holy Savior in Chora (a neighborhood of Istanbul) is considered one of the most beautiful surviving Byzantine churches. Again, it is filled with stunning mosaics from the the 11th century.

Above: This is a 4th century Roman mosaic from the
Great Palace Mosaic Museum. There are
many mosaics positioned on the floor in their original
location and sectioned off as part of the museum.
 Some panels have been mounted on the walls as this one has been. 

Above: This is a picture I took in Hagia Sophia today. 

Above: In this photo I am looking at the
Hagia Sophia Deesis mosaic.
Below: A close up of Jesus' face
 in the Deesis mosaic. Read more
about the Hagia Sophia mosaics at
www.hagiasophia.com. 

     Pushing ourselves artistically, technically, and cognitively as we work on our mosaics, like artisans have done for thousands of years is rewarding. Those moments of life when we feel "all thumbs" as I did on the first morning of the mosaic workshop are the moments that we learn from. When we are challenged as human beings we learn.  While I am the only school teacher at this intensive mosaic workshop, I know that when I challenge myself as a teacher my pedagogy grows in ways I never thought possible. Complacency has no place in the classroom. I say often that when my classroom is an inventive learning lab of discovery, rather than an assembly line of production that my students lives will be changed. I know that this week in Istanbul is changing my life. I'm not exactly sure how it is changing yet and what exactly I will do with this new knowledge, but I'm certain it is. It will be changing my own students' lives and those students who may do class projects associated with the curriculum I will be writing based on the experience. The curriculum will be available through Skype in the Classroom and elsewhere. I'll wait to see how else this knowledge will be used and what it will grow into. This is education. We help guide our students through their education. They learn new things. They learn to think logically and sequentially, each thing building on the next. And then, somewhere along the way, something sparks in them that leads to another choice, another interest of study, a career, and their life taking shape.

Above: Surrounded by thousands
of tesserae, I'm deep in thought
 as I lay each tessera onto my mosaic. 

     When we explore the world, when we leave our own microsystems in pursuit of the macrosystem (Bronfenbrenner), or the globalsystem (me) we open our eyes as students and teachers, our world becomes smaller, and we become more of a human family. Just as myself and the others in the intensive mosaic workshop are piecing together small stones and tiles and other embellishments, when we piece together our lives as an intersection where differing ideas and ideals meet such as here in Istanbul where people of many ideals and beliefs live peacefully together, the mosaic of meaning will resemble the magnificence of the Hagia Sophia or Chora mosaics...more than my 9"x12" experiment in learning. We all know, however, that like us, one day, a very long time ago ancient artists were learning how to use adhesive and tiles to make mosaics and their talent grew to be that of the artists whose work is still seen on the magnificent walls of these Istanbul historical monuments. We don't know anything about the artists. Perhaps they were monks from a Constantinople monastery.  Maybe they were workers from an atelier in the city that was associated with the imperial court. Possibly they were artists that the patriarch brought from provincial cities in a distant part of the Empire. I think they never imagined that thousands of people a day would line up for hours and pay admission to see their glass tiles and gold leaf efforts nearly a thousand years after they were made. Life and education are, indeed, a mosaic of meaning where the present will eventually become history.